The scientific planning of medical care today requires improvements in existing data and methods for studying the clinical course of chronic disease. In cancer and in various degenerative or other complex diseases, the classification of patients does not include many critical features needed to estimate prognosis and to evaluate therapy. Although the clinical course and statistics for management of a particular disease can be greatly affected by the patients' pattern of symptoms, associated ailments, and decisions about seeking and accepting medical assistance, these clinical, chronomtric, co-morbid and decisional data are seldom carefully assembled, classified, and correlated in the appraisal of therapeutic accomplishment. Because the intellectual "landmarks" have not been clearly specified and analyzed, investigators encounter major difficulty and controversy in evaluating the merits of different programs of medical care. Our object in this research is to distinguish these "landmarks" by assembling and analyzing appropriate data; by constructing improved taxonomic systems for classifying and storing the data;by clinically integrating computers into the management of the data and by developing better methods for establishing diagnosis, predicting prognosis, evaluating therapy, and designing trials of future new methods of therapeutic care. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Feinstein, A.R., Schimpff, C.S. and Hull, E.W. A reappraisal of staging and therapy for patients with cancer of the rectum. I. Development of two new systems of staging. II. Patterns of presentation and outcome of treatment. Arc. Intern. Med. l35: 1441-1453; 1454-1462 (Nov.), 1975. Boyd, N.F. and Feinstein, A.R. The prognostic importance of chronometry in Hodgkin's disease. Clin. Rsch. 23: 384A (April), 1975.